Saturday, April 14, 2012

Billie Anthony


A 78 found today at Age UK. I have never heard this version of This Ole House before but apparently it was a big hit in the 50's long before Shakin' Stevens.
I love the deep baritone voice that keeps chiming in every so often!

Wikipedia says -

"Billie Anthony (11 October 1932 — 5 January 1991) was a Scottish female singer. She is best known for her Top 10 hit version of "This Ole House", which despite chart competition from other versions of the same song, reached #4 in the UK chart.

She was born Philomena McGeachie Levy in Glasgow, Scotland. Her mother, Lily, was a talented dancer and her father, a song and dance man, and stage manager at the Glasgow Empire. Her godmother was Gracie Fields. Although her parents divorced when she was eighteen days old, she spent her entire childhood in and around the theatre, and wanted a career on the stage as a dancer. At first her mother was against her going into show business, so on leaving school she reluctantly agreed to train as a dressmaker, but her obsession with the theatre proved too powerful.
In 1946, when still only fourteen, she ran away from home and joined the chorus of a touring show as one of "May Moxon’s Young Ladies". Five years later she met Peter Elliott, who was part of a famous show business family called The Musical Elliotts. They developed an instant friendship and, due to their mutual love of dancing, decided on the formation of their own double act. As Phil and Peter Elliott, they successfully toured variety theatres as "The Debonair Dancers — Four Educated Feet". They toured continuously throughout 1952 but, in 1953, were compelled to abandon their act when Peter was called up to do his national service with the Royal Air Force."


Billie Anthony - This Ole House

Billie Anthony - (Oh) What A Dream

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:16 AM

    A nice, swinging version, thank You !

    Maybe you don`t know this version from 1955:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GderE4-XVmY

    I like it very much, but maybe it`s only because it was one of two 78s that my father owned. He gave both to me when my parents bought a new stereo- equipment and gave me the old mono- tubes- one.

    As I was only a child then, I couldn`t figure out how they made those spooky sounds...
    But even today it`s great (to me, that is):
    Steelguitar, fiddle, organ, accordeon, countrystyle guitar- try to find something similar in the 50s in Germany !
    Don`t mind the very german singing, please...

    Cheers,
    Joey

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  2. Thanks for the comments Joey - much appreciated. Loved the German version
    with the spooky steel guitar!

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  3. The Billie Anthony version was released in October
    1954 BUT I thought Columbia was using the red label w/gold printing. That must have been in the later 1950's.

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  4. You could well be right Billie - no idea! Thanks for dropping by!

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